SMJ Audio TTC style Ardent D Build

[JonMarsh]

A lot of good progress!

:T

[svenarajala]

Painting of cabinet 2 is complete and just in time! The temps have been dropping to 0C at night here in Northern VA. Today power was out for 8 hours. I had been using an electric heater in the garage to keep the temp at 20C. This weekend I need to work on cutting the sonic barrier to staple onto the ribs. I also need to get the rectangle cut to help with alignment when assembling the cabinets.

[svenarajala]

I spent some time getting the sonic barrier installed into the ribs. The ribs for the SMJ Ardent D are shorter than the Calliope. Which only 1 3/4 of a 1.5" strip of sonic baffle is needed per rib:





Same setup as before to cut the sonic baffle. Put in a new blade and the barrier sliced like butter!



Cabinet 1 with sonic barrier, the bottom rib hasn't had the barrier installed yet.



Bottom rib with barrier installed:



Cabinet 2 with barrier installed:



If you look, you will see 3 ribs without barrier. The top rib, and the rib above and below the chamber separator rib. No barrier is used because of the space around the crossovers. The crossovers are rather meaty! Next up is assembly time...

[svenarajala]

Sunday assembly of cabinet 1 started. It is a slow process because I'm trying to be careful and make sure everything is done that needs to be done (spacers, ribs, electrical connections).

The starting photo with the tweeter crossover on, but not secured:



Crosser secured, spacer and rib, but no rods:




Mid crossover attached to separator rib:



1st cabinet built to the separator rib. Now the fun begins to get the wiring connected. I need to get the tweeter wire in before I get to far!





Steve created a binding to go through the separator for me that connects the mid to the woofer crossover and the tweeter bolts on to the same posts as the mid crossover.



Tweeter crossover connection on mid crossover. The rib is ready to be installed after work today.


Back side of the separator rib. I will install the woofer crossover after I get the rib installed and the tweeter crossover wired in.

[svenarajala]

I have cabinet 1 ready to tighten down once I get the insert cut to keep it aligned. I have MDF and plywood available to use, just a matter of seeing which is easier to get to in my garage mess.

The tweeter wire is installed now. I have it installed on the other tweeter board to make things easier on cabinet 2:



Notice that the white and black are switched on the mid, that is for the reverse polarity that Steve reminded me of when picking up the parts and he also gave me a printout for a reminder when installing:



Separator rib installed and now the woofer crossover needs to be installed. I ended up having to pull this rib off and tighten the nuts down and then re-seated the rib. Everything is holding nicely now.





One can see that the cross overs do take up all the space of the board and it is a tight fit:



Getting the wiring ready for the 2 woofers:



Woofer crossover wired and installed:





Terminals bolted in place now:





At this point I installed the remaining three rods before adding the final spacers and ribs:



Cabinet 1 is ready to tighten down now!

[svenarajala]

I'm on travel till the 21st of November. I have to still get the alignment board cut to keep the ribs aligned when tightening. The good part is painting is done and it's all assembly from here. Looking forward to listening to these SMJ Ardent D's!

[svenarajala]

I got the spacer cut on the table saw last night. The width is 8 3/8" for a very snug fit which will get the ribs and spacers all lined up. I tried 8 7/16" first, but that was to snug.



I started assembling the second tower last night. It's getting closer!

[JonMarsh]

Good progress- it's been very interesting watching this all come together!

[svenarajala]

I need to post photos tomorrow probably, but I have one cabinet assembled now except for the speakers installed. I have some learning lessons that need to go into the next post . I chatted with Steve about the issues and he had some great recommendations that worked out! I need to get the other cabinet assembled tonight/tomorrow, but by next weekend the Ardent D's should be live and running :surround:

[svenarajala]

It's the final countdown

As the build comes to completion Steve and I identified how to make baffle installation easier. The Calliope being smaller was easy to just drill a hole in the aluminum bar and then attach it to the baffle through the woofer hole. The Ardent D baffle proved to be challenging for my large hands. Steve thought about it for and suggested a U be cut into the bar. This would allow the bolts with lock washer to be installed on the baffle and the bar just slides on. Trying to get the bolts in the hole through the tweeter hole proved to an impossible challenge for me! The aluminum bars now look like the following:



Installation was significantly easier. The bar was installed, the bolts tightened with fingers and then I used a ratchet to make sure it was nice and snug.

The port went in nicely with some paraffin wax, again huge thanks to Steve for that suggestion. I now have a block of that in my speaker parts box

The baffle has cork tape around the edge to seal. The spacer between the upper and lower chamber has cork tape too. This was another friendly reminder from Steve! Thank goodness he told me this before I got the baffles installed!




Getting the baffle lined up was like performing a delicate ballet. Steve had again provided some great wisdom on how to accomplish this and I'm happy with how I got it lined up. It was a process of laying the cabinet on the floor, tightening the rods, then lightly tightening the baffle, check alignment of the baffle, tighten rods, use rubber mallet to assert who is the boss, and then repeat the last 4 steps till the baffle is aligned.





Once the cabinets were assembled it was time to mount the feet on. I had to pick up some 1/4-20 1/2" pan heads from Lowes. They were hidden in one of the drawers there, but I found them!





Note that the port tube is required to stick out like this because it goes into the foot mount part:





After I got all this completed yesterday I had to run out to meet some friends in town and that ate the rest of the afternoon up.

[svenarajala]

Game On!

After returning from the social meet up it was around 2100, and I said game on time to get these speakers working tonight! I got the towers moved into their temporary place:



The lineup of the drivers for their mug shot before installation:





Would you believe me if I told you the tweeter is heavier than the mid?

After the drivers installed it was time for a listening session.



By the time the drivers were installed it was about 2300. I spent 1.5 hours going through a bunch of songs. I just got the Emotiva RMC-1 installed last week, but it needs to be configured still. Luckily it has this reference stereo mode that lets a 2.0 be a 2.0 :P.

Overall impression is that I didn't want to stop listening to them! The clarity, and imaging was amazing. When Nora Jones was playing she was literally in front of me. The tweeter is voiced very similar to the Calliope, and the Ardent Wavecor in my opinion. I'm very excited to have these speakers completed now. The rest of the weekend will be spent cleaning up the tools and parts for assembly and then listening till I have to go to bed :P

[Heli-Tim]

Absolutely beautiful! Fantastic build!

[ergo]

Superb work and result.... wish you happy listening and lots of enjoyment with these beauties.

PS. If you haven't watched the Little Voice series on Apple TV+

https://tv.apple.com/us/show/little-voice/umc.cmc.4x932osv992wjjdq7ce12za2r

then I would recommend. For me the music and vocals there beat even Nora Jones by a margin

[svenarajala]

Absolutely beautiful! Fantastic build!

Thank you Tim! This build took a lot longer due to all the travel I had. It's hard to believe I picked the parts up back on Memorial weekend from Steve which is 31 May in the US. I think if I had been around this would have been 4 weeks of work to finish them. 1 week would have been for the paint and clear coat to harden per the recommendation from the manufacturer.

[svenarajala]

Superb work and result.... wish you happy listening and lots of enjoyment with these beauties.

PS. If you haven't watched the Little Voice series on Apple TV+

https://tv.apple.com/us/show/little-voice/umc.cmc.4x932osv992wjjdq7ce12za2r

then I would recommend. For me the music and vocals there beat even Nora Jones by a margin

Thank you Ergo! I plan on spending lots of time getting to know these speakers and trying out lots of music.

Now you made a good point about why I should consider Apple TV. I currently only use Spotify and Netflix, but perhaps Apple TV may be in the mix to watch the Little Voices.

[ergo]

Yeah - I also jumped into that wagon just recently.

The other interesting one related to our hobby over there is a documentary

https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2021/06/apple-tv-unveils-trailer-for-new-docuseries-watch-the-sound-with-mark-ronson/

[technodanvan]

Do I see some sort of boom arm being used for a beverage holder? It looks too small though, but too big to be a mic?

[svenarajala]

Do I see some sort of boom arm being used for a beverage holder? It looks too small though, but too big to be a mic?

LoL, that is one of my C-stands that I use for holding a flash, however I found that it works perfectly for holding a mic. I had a mic on there to calibrate the Emotiva with Dirac. I don't use Dirac calibration for listening though. I put the Emotiva in reference stereo mode for the 2.0 and I'm pretty pleased with that. Now I'm trying to figure out the Roon setup you got me hooked on

[technodanvan]

That uh...makes a lot more sense.